


Tiptoeing The Edge En Pointe

by gatonip



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: (like a few times), Gen, POV Second Person, Pearl is extremely depressed over losing Rose and Garnet doesn't know how to make things better, Suicide Attempt, because angst is only fun if it turns out okay in the end, kinda really sad but has a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatonip/pseuds/gatonip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pain of losing Rose was nothing compared to the pain of knowing Pearl was failing to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiptoeing The Edge En Pointe

**Author's Note:**

> This is all written from Garnet's perspective, looking back from a few months prior to Rose's death to Steven moving in with the gems

When Rose and Greg announced their plans for Steven, you were all taken aback, couldn’t comprehend how such a thing would be feasible, but you came to accept the fact that it was happening and made strides to prepare for his arrival. Greg mentioned building an addition to the temple in which Steven could live in. Rose acquired dozens of baby books, sifting through them and expounding the information on all of you in wonder (“Did you know human young need help expelling gas from their mouths?”, “They wear these little one piece outfits with flaps in the back!”, “Their sleep cycles mimic those of domestic feline animals, isn’t that fascinating?”). There was hesitation at first, but you all came to look forward to the new addition to the team. You would all raise him to be the best person he could be: you would train him to fight, Amethyst would help develop his shapeshifting, Pearl would teach him strategy, and Rose would foster his respect for all living things. It was going to be perfect.

Of the three of you, you were the first to know that Rose wouldn’t survive Steven’s birth. 

It wasn’t intentional: you had walked in on Rose discussing the issue with Greg, mulling over how to break the news to the rest of you as easily as possible. A part of you still wishes you had had the luxury that Amethyst and Pearl had gotten, of being told with forewarning of how serious the conversation would be and a plan on how to approach it. Instead you got rushed explanations, words stumbling over each other as she tried to clarify what was happening, while you struggled and failed to maintain composure. Poor Greg stood by awkwardly as you demanded why she would ever do such a thing and she tried her best to reason with you, and to this day you don’t know how the situation had managed to become one that you had pushed off to the side in your Future Vision. You could have Seen this coming. You could have prepared yourself.

You struggled for a long time, trying to adjust yourself to the idea of life without Rose. It seemed nearly unfathomable, considering how long she had been your commander and mentor, your friend. Being faced with helping to raise a hybrid child seemed difficult enough as it was, but now to suddenly be tasked with doing so without its mother was a heavy weight on your mind. You outwardly accepted the idea long before you internally did.

When she was ready, she told Amethyst next. You didn’t want to intrude on the conversation, but you had just come in through the warp pad when Amethyst barreled her way out of the temple, pushing past you as Rose rushed after her.

“Amethyst, please, I-”

“LIAR!” Amethyst had come to a stop just shy of where the frame for the south wall of the house had been set up, fists clenched and tears streaming down her face. “YOU’RE A FILTHY LIAR!”

“Sweetheart-”

“YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER LEAVE US! NEVER LEAVE _ME!_ WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THAT, HUH?!” She hadn’t waited for a response and rushed off towards the beach, yelling profanities. 

So clearly you remember the next moment: Rose, now standing next to you on the edge of the warp pad, shoulders slumped and a weariness on her face that you’d rarely seen since the war ended. It was exhaustion you previously thought that only the stress of daily threats on her and her comrades’ lives could cause.

After a moment, she had said, “This is more difficult than I feared it would be.”

“She’ll understand eventually,” you tried to comfort her, quietly hoping the same could be said for yourself one day.

She had let out a long sigh, shoulders slumping further. Brought a hand up to run through her fringe. In a whisper that you likely wouldn’t have heard had you not been standing right beside her, she muttered, “And she’s the easier of the two.”

It scared you, knowing she was right. That Amethyst’s explosive reaction, as violently negative and painful as it was, would be a mere whine compared to what would happen once she told Pearl.

When she returned from her solo mission later that day and you saw Rose approach her, you distanced yourself as far from the temple as you could. You didn’t want to witness what would follow. On your trek you had run into Amethyst, sobbing off in a field by herself, viciously clawing at you as you wrapped your arms around her. She eventually settled into you, crying as you rocked her the way you always did whenever she felt frustrated. Promises of “we’ll be okay” that you didn’t truly believe in that moment seemed cruel, so you said nothing.

When it felt that an appropriate amount of time had passed, you both returned to the temple. Pearl was nowhere in sight. Rose looked like she had aged millennia, couldn’t even feign a smile when she noticed the two of you approaching. She said she felt it was best if she stayed the night with Greg. Later, when you ran into Pearl in the temple, you were taken by surprise when she greeted you as pleasantly as she would any other day. There was nothing about her demeanor that spoke of pain, to the point that for a long while you thought that Rose never did tell her (this was debunked a few weeks later, when Steven’s arrival was offhandedly mentioned and she froze up, dropping a tea cup by accident).

A growing sense of animosity between the four of you grew as Steven’s impending birth drew closer and closer. Rose couldn’t contain her excitement over him coming no matter how hard she tried, which was a stab in the gut to all of you. Amethyst constantly begged you to talk to her, to make her reconsider and somehow get rid of the pest before he could take her from you. Then she’d scream at you when you turned her down, accusing you of caring more for some freak of nature that didn’t even exist yet than you did about Rose. You know it was only heartache talking, but you still felt disgusted when she had the audacity to not only suggest such a thing to you, but then turn to Pearl and accuse her of no longer caring for Rose, as she made no (public) argument to dissuade her either. Pearl wouldn’t say anything. 

And so Amethyst came to loathe all three of you, you and Pearl for your inaction and Rose for her plans to leave. She avoided you and Pearl, shooting you dirty glances when forced to be around you (she couldn’t keep herself from hanging around Rose as she always did, though there was no enthusiasm in her words). You did your best to console Rose when the emotional toll became visible on her delicate face, but thanks to your already quiet nature, it wasn’t outwardly noticeable when you stopped speaking to everyone as much. There were too many thoughts running in your head to articulate properly, too many nights sifting through possible paths you could take to ensure that Steven could be brought into the world without Rose sacrificing herself (you never could find a stable one). To an outside observer Pearl seemed the least affected by the news, tagging behind Rose during errands as if nothing had or would change. But you had overheard conversations between them during that time, and there was something definitively off about the way they spoke to one another. As if they were walking on cracked glass, every word they spoke was a dance, composed and followed step by step with no room for interpretation. If either took a misstep that strayed from that choreography, the illusion was broken and one or both ran off to hide away in her room in the temple. Apart they sounded relatively normal, but together they became mechanical, following the format of past dances rather than create anything new.

The day you lost Rose was the hardest day your team ever went through.

The moment is clear as a bell in your mind. The summer twilight had just begun casting shadows across the land, the lights of the town beginning to flicker on and the sand of the beach was starting to lose its heat. Rose’s last view of the world she fought to protect was a beautiful one, albeit framed awkwardly by the edges of the back of Greg’s van. As he held a crying bundle engulfed in pink, you all, too, were crying. Amethyst sobbed and clung to your side, nearly crushing you as you failed to keep the tears from falling down your own face. Greg shook as he tried to soothe Steven, who wailed as if he too knew the pain of losing Rose despite being only a few moments old. 

Rose and Pearl’s relationship was no well-kept secret to any of you. Pearl was Rose’s second-in-command, her confidant, seemingly the only one who could truly understand the horrors she had gone through during the war. Rose was Pearl’s mentor, her reason for leaving everything in her life behind, the one who knew how to keep her grounded when no one else could. None of you were blind to how Pearl vied for Rose’s approval and affection, how her love for Rose rivaled the very love you embody. And you were not blind to how the way Rose looked at Greg was strikingly similar to the way she looked at Pearl, the way Pearl looked at her. You firmly believe that if Pearl had said something, or if Rose had chosen differently, Pearl’s biggest dream would have become reality.

As it was, her darkest nightmare did instead.

The prickling of a future outcome had entered your mind space as Rose’s end drew nearer, one that fluctuated in validity almost daily. You had high doubts that it would ever come to fruition, but the nature of it gave you pause to throw it away completely. Such naivety had left you blindsided when Rose announced her impending doom, hadn’t it?

When you saw Pearl through the lingering haze of pink, staring down at her fists clenched tight against the floor of the van, you dared to hope that it would be alright. That somehow, somehow, she was going to be okay; perhaps not happy, never as she once was, but that she would find a way to carry on. Deep down you knew you would soldier through the pain, and as young as she was you had the inkling that Amethyst would learn to cope, given time. You just hoped the same could be said of Pearl. 

But as the infant continued howling much to Greg’s distress, she suddenly looked up in your direction. At first you thought she was looking at you, for reassurance perhaps, but then you realized she was looking out the van beyond you to the beach, and that old outcome skyrocketed in probability.

“Pearl-”

You didn’t get the chance to talk her out of it before she jumped out past you to flee down the long expanse of shore.

The precious seconds you wasted in untangling from Amethyst nearly ruined you. Hot on Pearl’s heels, you yelled her name as the two of you raced down the beach, kicking up sand and straining to move faster than either of you physically could. Your tall stature and her being featherweight made you evenly matched. The extra seconds’ head start was the only thing tipping the scales in her favor. 

Idly you sensed Amethyst following you.

“Pearl! Garnet, what’s happening? Where is she going?”

You had seen the many branches of the outcome laid out, and though it hurt to imagine them all, it took away her advantage of unpredictability. You had realized, in that moment back in the van, that one method in particular would suit Pearl most. Perhaps not the most sentimental as she’d want, but it would be quick, effortless. All she had to do was-

“Garnet!”

“She’s going to jump!”

“What!?”

You redoubled your efforts as the terrain slanted upwards, still screaming at Pearl to stop. Amethyst by that point had joined in as well, finally realizing what was going on. But Pearl made no indication of any intention to do so, her steps hard against the ground as she continued her path up to the top of the cliff side. You willed yourself to move faster but it was no use, the gap was too much for you to close, and so by the time you hit the cliff’s peak Pearl had already launched herself off the side.

Without hesitation you reached out a hand to grab her, extending it far past your arm’s normal length (cursing yourself for not thinking to do so earlier) and, once secure in your fist, threw her back behind you. She brushed off the shock quickly and scrambled back up the cliff. Amethyst threw herself at Pearl to stop her, but she was merely a slight nuisance in her path and she shoved past her, coming back up to where you stood.

“Pearl, STOP!” you pleaded as you blocked her way to the edge, dancing this way and that as she tried to get around you. Her calculating mind had always impressed you, how she analyzed situations so quickly that upon first glance it could be confused as foresight, but at the time you cursed her gift as she ducked under you and jumped. You barely grabbed her in time, both arms tight around her middle, wind from the sea blowing wildly against you. Down below, you knew, loomed the sharp angled rocks she wished to make her grave. You struggled to keep hold of her as she thrashed against you and screamed, you screaming right back.

“LET GO OF ME!”

“STOP THIS!”

“LET GO!”

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU DO THIS, PEARL!”

“SHE’S DEAD! SHE’S DEAD, THERE’S NO POINT!”

“PEARL, STOP-”

“I WON’T LIVE WITHOUT HER, SHE’S DEAD, LET ME GO SHE’S FUCKING DEAD!!!”

A sharp elbow to the face made you falter for but a second and she slipped out of your grip, barreling forwards and throwing herself over the side a third time. This time when your hands got ahold of her, you gathered up your strength and hurled her as far as you could in the opposite direction. In hindsight it would have been rather ironic if her gem had sustained damage as she tumbled through the air and landed off in the distance, skidding across the ground. 

When you and Amethyst reached her, spitting sand out and beginning to get to her feet, you knew this was an endless cycle that would never end at this rate. It hurt you, understanding that there was no peaceful way to end this, but you knew what you needed to do. You swiftly took hold of Pearl’s shoulders and pushed forwards, sending her tumbling back to the ground. 

“Amethyst,” you instructed, “keep her down.”

Without much hesitation she compiled, pinning Pearl down who struggled against her new captor, resuming her screaming. Amethyst looked up at you with an expression that asked ‘now what?’

Taking a moment to steady yourself, you brought forth your gauntlets. Amethyst’s and Pearl’s eyes both widened, Amethyst looking horrified and Pearl almost hopeful. That hope on her face sickened you, enough to cast away any lingering doubts that you needed to act now while you still could. You would not lose two of your family in one day.

You brought your gauntlets down on her chest, dead center.

\--

“It’s been three weeks,” Amethyst had informed you on the 21st day after Rose had died, and you nodded. Pearl had been set in her resting case in her room, which the two of you vigilantly watched over both out of concern and a lack of motivation to do much else than simply exist. You both spoke very little, and those three weeks are as much of a blur in your memory as they felt in the moment.

“G.”

“Hmm?”

“If she comes back-when she comes back, won’t she just…try again?”

“No,” you told her. “She’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“…no.” And you weren’t.

Pearl returned a few days after that conversation, sporting shorter hair (if such a thing was even conceivable for her), a modernized outfit, and a considerably dimmer light in her eyes. She made her presence known to you both by interrupting your game of cards via dropping her entire sword collection at your feet.

“Uh-” Amethyst had started questioning before she was cut off.

“I’m not ready to have these around me.” At that, she turned on her heel and returned to her room, and it was another week before you heard anything more than those eight words from her.

Your next conversation with her was a request.

“I can’t apologize, not yet.”

“And why’s that?”

“It’s much more efficient to apologize after everything’s done with than do so over and over again, isn’t it?”

You clenched your fists, making sure your anger was known. “If you try again-”

“I don’t plan to. But I’m weak, Garnet. I don’t know what will happen.”

You were silent as she turned to leave, assuming the conversation was over. At the door to the temple she piped up one more time.

“You don’t have to stop me, if anything happens. But I’d appreciate it if you tried.”

Somehow that made you even angrier. “Do you really think I won’t?”

She just shrugged. “I wouldn’t.”

\--

Pearl never tried to jump again. But it wasn’t the last incident.

It seemed like every time she made progress, something would click in her and she’d be back at square one. You sent her on missions in the hopes of keeping her distracted, but when she once returned with a hairline crack in her gem you made it a rule that she couldn’t go on missions by herself (a ban you didn’t feel safe lifting until after Steven moved in with you). When she could stand to interact with Greg again, he employed her to help construct the mainframe of the house, which she insisted on working on the ground level. This was constructive for her, until you caught her staring at a hammer in her hands with a dull look in her eyes so reminiscent of the first time she tried. One day she had been off meditating in her room and you and Amethyst jumped when you heard screaming. You found her bashing her head against the wall, yelling Rose’s name until her voice went raw.

The trauma these incidents inflicted on Amethyst, you can only imagine. Despite her being just a few thousand years younger than yourself, you tend to have a difficult time seeing her as anything but the young, innocent thing you had all found in the kindergarten so long ago. So every time Pearl cracked, every time Amethyst was around to watch her break down, you feared for the havoc it was wreaking on her. It was difficult enough to lose her mother figure, and now she was on the brink of losing her best friend, too. Some days she would throw up her hands and tell you she was done, that she didn’t want to be bothered anymore, and Pearl could shatter for all she cared. She’d return but an hour later frantically looking for her, scared her impulsive wish had come true.

For yourself, you waged a war in your mind over how you felt about the whole concept. On the one hand, you felt for Pearl. Both halves of yourself could never imagine the agony of permanently losing one another, and while you loved Rose you know that she will always mean so much more to Pearl than she could to you. But on the other, you couldn’t condone the downward spiral Pearl had taken. Rose spoke privately to you of Pearl’s past, of the troubles she’s always had with her self-worth and confidence, and how for spans of time you could almost forget all of that with how well Rose had taught her to value herself. It was as if her death had reset Pearl, not quite a hard reset but at least back to the war when her usefulness was – in her mind – her only positive trait, her only reason for living. As much as it was troubling to see what Pearl had become, it was just as much a slap to the face. It was insulting to Rose’s memory for her to give up as easily as she had, that even if she was trying to keep it together she should have tried harder. You’d chastise yourself for being so hard on her, grow angry for trying to make up excuses for her, and storm off to try to calm yourself.

You tried so hard to get her to open up to you. You thought that maybe if she had someone to talk to about how she was feeling, she could cope with it rather than bottling it up until she couldn’t take it anymore. But you’ve always had a difficult time expressing yourself verbally, and your attempts to get her to talk were always fruitless. Pearl had bared her very being to Rose. It will be millennia (if ever) before she’ll ever be ready to let anyone get that close to her again.

Keeping your own thoughts in check, being there for Amethyst when she needed a shoulder to cry on, and staying on suicide watch was becoming so emotionally exhausting that on your toughest days you were ready to give up. The three of you nearly fell apart completely.

Eventually Pearl’s incidents were less frequent. Head smashing became the occasional broken teacup in her hands. She was still hurting, you could see it the way she carried herself and could hear it in the way she spoke, but she’d finally found it easier to choose life.

Her next milestone, a little over a year after you lost Rose, was being left alone with Steven without anyone fearing for what might happen. With her plans for self-destruction abandoned, you were confident she wasn’t about to jump off anywhere with him in her arms, but it was hard to convince Greg of this. As much as you tried to keep her condition secret from him he had inevitably found out, pitied her for her pain which she in no way welcomed, hesitated even more whenever her outstretched arms wished to hold her charge. 

To this day you still believe the only reason Pearl didn’t attempt to kill Steven as a baby was she feared harming his gemstone. There was no love in her words when referring to him, she referred to him as ‘it’ much too frequently, his name didn’t pass her lips affectionately until he was two (and so her name didn’t pass his until well after he learned the rest of yours). You don’t know precisely when grudge became love, but there is a distinct separation of time in your mind during Steven’s infancy: before Pearl accepted him as her own, and after. The before was pushing her to see him, fighting with her to have some involvement in his life. The after was having to fight her to get her to put him down for two seconds. The after was carrying him around wherever she went in a basket on her hip, the after was bedtime stories and lullabies, the after was keeping vigilant watch over him as he slept for fear of what might become of him if she wasn’t careful. The after became the present, and oh how sweet it is to watch her look at him adoringly as he plays on the beach and hold him close when it’s time to say goodnight.

On the day Steven moved into the house, Pearl pulled you two aside while he and Greg gathered up his things from the van. She steadied herself and spoke as if she had this conversation planned word-for-word – which you knew she did – but her wringing her hands gave away her anxiety.

“I know it’s been a while. Much too long, really, but I wanted to wait until I was absolutely sure that, well…but I’m positive now, so it’s time-”

“Sheesh P, get on with it. We’re not getting any younger.” A nervous chuckle accompanied Amethyst’s words. You could tell she was only trying to diffuse the tension a bit, but that attitude over serious matters never sits well with Pearl. She puffed up her cheeks a bit in frustration but quickly calmed herself and returned to her speech.

“…I wanted to tell you both that I’m sorry, for everything I’ve put you two through the past few years. I was so…absorbed in my own misery that I only made yours worse. I hope you can both forgive me. Maybe not now, but someday.”

You exchanged a look with Amethyst, who seemed shocked that this of all things was what Pearl wanted to discuss with you. To be fair Pearl has never been one to admit to being in the wrong without pulling a few teeth. But this time was different. So long ago she had made that promise to you to apologize when the time came, and if you know Pearl as well as you believe you do, getting to this point was just as much so she could make proper amends with you and Amethyst as it was to regain a sense of longevity about herself.

Amethyst hadn’t responded right away, likely waiting to see how you’d react first. So you spoke honestly, how you thought a  
role model ought to set an example.

“I won’t forgive you.”

Pearl’s shoulders slumped but her face didn’t register much shock. More so weariness, like she expected as much, like she had already predicted this outcome and accepted it so it wouldn’t hurt as badly when it became reality. You held up a hand when she went to speak again.

“I won’t forgive you, unless you swear to us you’re going to live for your own sake. Not because you have a duty to us as your team, or to Steven as his guardian. Not even…” you hesitated briefly, but you knew it needed to be said, “…not even to Rose as her friend. I want you to keep going because you _want_ to.”

She looked down for a moment as if considering your offer. When she met your eye again, there was the briefest little spark in her that reminded you of the old days, when your lives together were still new and she had a fire in her that you feared had flickered out completely.

“I swear.”

You grinned. Amethyst took that as the okay and launched into Pearl, lifting her off the ground and laughing. As Pearl sputtered out half-serious orders to put her down you enveloped the two in a hug. A round of infectious laughter started up among the three of you and for a moment everything felt lighter. You hadn’t laughed like that in years; none of you had. When the giggles subsided and you broke apart to finish preparing for Steven’s arrival, you expounded one more leader-like declaration on them:

“I think we’re going to be alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> Pearl utterly destroys me, I can barely handle her mourning Rose now and it's been at least a decade since she died, what sick hell is Rebecca Sugar going to subject us to in future flashback episodes I'm so scared


End file.
